Blood of the Demon kg-2 Read online

  Seriously unimpressive.

  I could only hope that Rhyzkahl knew what the fuck he was talking about.

  Chapter 12

  As soon as I made it in to the station the next morning, I went to my sergeant’s office to give him a rundown of what Doc had found during the autopsies of Brian and Carol Roth.

  Crawford nodded slowly after I finished. “Okay,” he said, turning his pen end over end. “So, Carol Roth might have been killed by someone other than Brian, which then casts a great deal of doubt on his death being a suicide.”

  “Right. And if we wait for test results, any trail could be too cold to follow.”

  “God, it would feel good to clear him of this shit.” Crawford tapped the pen on his blotter, a flicker of a grimace passing over his face. “I hate to do this, but … I’m going to give these two cases to Pellini.”

  I stared at him, certain that I had misheard him. “Sarge,” I said, trying not to stutter in outrage. “Pellini has a backlog of cases. He can’t write a coherent report to save his life. He’s marking time until he can retire. The only other case I have is Davis Sharp. I can do this!”

  Crawford shook his head. “I know you can, Kara, but … I was told to reassign these cases.” He looked pissed, which made me feel slightly better. At least this wasn’t because he thought I couldn’t handle the caseload.

  “I guess the theory is that there’ll be too many ill feelings if you start getting all the juicy cases,” he continued. “We don’t have that many murders around here, and the other detectives want their share.” He pulled a sour face, and I knew that he didn’t really give a shit about hurt feelings.

  I still didn’t bother to hide my scowl. Unfortunately, there was a measure of truth to what he’d said. There was already some resentment and ill will toward me over the resolution of the Symbol Man case and my strange disappearance, and Sarge was only doing what he’d been told to do.

  But Pellini? I’d counted myself lucky that I’d never had to work directly with the dour, overweight detective. He’d been with Beaulac PD for only four years, after fifteen with NOPD, and so far the best impression I had of him was that he was lazy, sloppy, and generally unpleasant to be around. He seemed miserable, and I had the feeling that the only joy he had in life was when he was making other people miserable as well. But would cases be reassigned just because of his whining? He whined about everything. Usually everyone simply ignored it.

  “Go get him up to speed on what you have so far, Kara.” Then Crawford paused. “Give him a chance. He does have a lot of experience.” But I could see the doubt in his eyes.

  I nodded and muttered something about typing my notes up, then left Crawford’s office to return to my own. It took me only about twenty minutes to type what I had so far on the two deaths, but I was as detailed and thorough as possible so that no one could point any fingers at the quality of the work I turned over to Pellini. I wanted to dither and put off handing the cases over to him, but unfortunately I had too much else I needed to do. As soon as I finished typing, I printed the reports out, then made my way to Pellini’s office.

  His door stood open and I could see him leaning back in his chair, looking at something on his computer. The screen was faced away from me, so I couldn’t tell what it was. But when he saw me in the doorway, he clicked on something else, making me suspect that it hadn’t exactly been work-related—not that I had any room to judge, since I did my own share of Internet surfing on taxpayer dollars. Pellini’s office was about half again the size of mine, which meant that it was the size of a large closet. Pellini was as well, or darn near. He was big and blustery, with greasy black hair and a thick mustache that looked like it belonged on a seventies-era porn star. The rest of him was far from porn-star quality, though. He’d given up on maintaining any sort of physical standard well over a decade ago, and his belly hung so far over his belt that I had a hard time imagining how he put his pants on. Not that I tended toward mental exercises related to Pellini and his pants …

  I extended the small sheaf of printed pages. He looked at them, then reluctantly straightened in his chair and leaned forward to take them in something just short of a snatch, blowing his breath out as if that small effort had winded him. Which it probably had. I made a mental note to get my own out-of-shape ass to the gym. I was nowhere near as bad as Pellini; I could still run two miles without puking, though it sure wasn’t pretty. But I knew I owed it to the cops I worked with to stay in something resembling good condition. I couldn’t even imagine how Pellini would handle backing someone up in a fight or a foot pursuit.

  I kept the professional smile glued into place as he glanced over what I had so far—even when he gave a snort that sounded suspiciously derisive. “I’ll have to teach you how to do a follow-up,” he said, his tone pompous. He looked up at me, a slight sneer curving his mouth. “You got fucking lucky with the serial killer. Now it’s time for you to learn how to do a proper investigation.”

  I clenched my jaw tightly enough to feel my teeth squeak to keep from saying something that would no doubt be career-destroying. “I don’t think I got lucky,” I said stiffly. “I put in a lot of time—”

  “You got lucky,” he said, cutting me off. “But don’t take offense,” he continued, as I tried to control my seething. “Most cops make great careers out of being lucky.” Then he gave me an arrogant smirk. “I’ll teach you how to solve a case by actually working it, though.”

  I forced myself to nod. “Sure thing, Pellini. Maybe we can go out for a beer and you can tell me about some of the big murder cases you worked in the city.”

  His face reddened, and I knew I’d struck at least a glancing blow. Pellini had worked in patrol and then courtroom security. He’d worked in Investigations in NOPD for only a year before coming over here, and that had been in Property Crimes. Not that there was anything shameful about Property Crimes—I’d worked them for two years before taking on the Symbol Man case—but by that measure I had more experience than he did. And I had a feeling that, if we were to compare stats, I’d still have him beat—even with the fact that he’d been in a metro area and I’d been in sleepy rural Beaulac. I still wasn’t sure how he’d managed to talk his way into being a homicide detective over here, but I also knew that wondering about that sort of thing was a waste of energy.

  He huffed and stood, tugging at his pants to get them positioned properly beneath the great shelf of his belly. “I’m gonna go talk to Brian’s dad. I’d ask you to come with me, but me and the judge go back a ways from our NOPD days. I’m sure he’s going through a rough spot right now, and he’ll feel better knowing that a senior detective is handling the case. Plus, it’s gonna be a lot of guy talk, and it’d probably be over your head.”

  I resisted the urge to be offended by any of the myriad of insults implied in that statement and instead forced myself to be relieved that I didn’t need to spend any more time with Pellini. “No problem,” I said brightly. “Let me know when you need any help.” As long as it’s not with finding your dick under that roll of fat, I thought silently as I left and returned to my own office.

  I closed my door, allowing myself to fume for a few minutes, followed by some wallowing in self-pity. Is Pellini’s connection to Judge Roth how he got the cases reassigned to him? He pulled strings? And if so, did the judge know what he was letting himself in for? I briefly debated throwing something heavy and breakable, but about the only thing that fell into that category in my office was my computer, and I wasn’t quite brave enough to go there.

  I finally had to settle for wadding up the contents of my printer tray and chucking the paper balls across the room. Nowhere near as satisfying, but by the time I cleaned up the resulting mess, I had pretty much burned through the majority of my ire.

  My cell phone rang, yanking me out of my funk. “Kara Gillian,” I answered.

  “Hey, Kara, it’s Doc. Got some bad news for you about your councilman.”

  “Now what?”

&nb
sp; “Well, it wasn’t an accident.”

  My stomach tightened. “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah, unless he fell down and hit his head twice. The impact and positioning’s all wrong for it to be just from falling in the shower. There’s not enough trauma to be life-threatening, but I’m pretty sure he got whacked a couple of times with something heavy—enough to knock him out or stun him—and then he was stuffed into the corner of the shower so that he’d asphyxiate.”

  “I hate you,” I said automatically, since that was the reaction he was surely expecting, but my mind was racing a thousand miles an hour.

  He laughed. “Sorry. I’ll get back to you later about specifics.”

  I hung up the phone, feeling a strange combination of dread and relief. Two homicides. Suddenly I had the possibility of a common thread between Brian Roth and Davis Sharp. But what other connection could Brian Roth have had with Davis Sharp? They were probably at least acquainted with each other, due to Sharp’s restaurant, but that would also apply to half the population of Beaulac.

  I waggled my mouse to turn off my screen saver, and started typing in online searches for essence, souls, and anything I could think of that could give me a bit of a clue as to what besides an ilius could consume essence. Brian’s death might not have been my case anymore, but I had every intention of figuring out why the hell both of their essences had been consumed. This wasn’t a waste of taxpayer dollars, I told myself, since technically it did relate to police work, even though it wasn’t anything that would ever go into a written report.

  Doing online searches was always a toss of the dice as far as what came back, but I’d been shocked and pleased before at some obscure discoveries, so I always figured it was worth a try. I knew that there were other arcane practitioners in the world—not just summoners—and it made sense that someone somewhere might have mentioned something. In fact, I occasionally found obscure information in the guise of fiction—sort of like how I’d found information on the Symbol Man in a comic book.

  But I didn’t have the same kind of luck this time. I spent a fruitless hour surfing the Internet, finding plenty on vampires, some Japanese manga, even some outlandish erotic fiction about unicorn-riding soul-eating succubi zombies, but nothing I could put a finger on and say, “That’s it!”

  I wiped my browser history and cleared the cache. Then I sighed and settled in for an afternoon of incredibly mundane but necessary paperwork. Ah, the exciting life of a detective.

  Chapter 13

  I pulled into the parking lot of st. Luke’s Catholic church shortly after noon the next day. As the investigating detective into Davis Sharp’s murder, it was reasonable—and practically expected—for me to attend his funeral, though not for the reasons that were usually put forth in crime fiction, where the detective attended the victim’s funeral in order to corner and question suspects.

  In my world, if a detective tried to question suspects at a funeral, he or she would be suspended or fired before they could say, But that’s how it’s done on TV!

  This was essentially little more than good PR—show the grieving family and the public that the police department cares and intends to take the case very seriously and personally.

  I pulled my jacket on right before I reached the door, noting with mild amusement that I wasn’t the only attendee avoiding wearing a jacket out in the sweltering heat. I’d dressed in my one good-quality suit—the one I wore for court and funerals—and even worn low heels and tasteful jewelry for the occasion. I didn’t have a problem with the PR aspect of attending funerals—after all, most of our funding came from tax dollars, and murmuring polite regrets wasn’t terribly onerous. But at the same time I was interested in seeing who would attend, even if interrogations weren’t on the schedule. And, given Auri’s testimony, I was especially interested to see if any slender blondes showed up.

  I held the door for an approaching couple, then entered after them, echoing their sigh of relief as the air-conditioning enveloped us. Then I had to bite back a snort of annoyance. You have got to be fucking kidding me.

  Damn near every woman in the place had blond hair. And was slender. And was dressed to the nines.

  I continued in, suddenly feeling much less confidence in the “niceness” of my suit. I could feel assessing gazes, and I was glad that at least I’d worn my badge. Maybe these taxpayers would now be inclined to vote for new taxes out of pity, since the city’s detectives were obviously so underpaid that they had to buy their clothing off the rack. The horror.

  I fixed a pleasant and subdued smile onto my face, dutifully signed the guest log, then found an out-of-the-way space near the back where I could people-watch. I managed to pick out Davis Sharp’s widow fairly easily, aided by the fact that I’d downloaded her driver’s license photo before coming to the funeral. Elena Sharp was a strikingly lovely woman, with almond-shaped eyes, light-olive-toned skin, and dark-brown hair highlighted with auburn that fell in a skillfully layered cut down her back. In fact, she was damn near the only woman in the church who wasn’t a blonde.

  And she’s a suspect.

  Crawford had been less than thrilled when I finally touched base with him to inform him that Councilman Sharp’s death had been no accident. “What a pain in the ass,” he’d grumbled. “Last thing we needed was a homicide of someone rich and connected.”

  I knew what he meant. There would be a ridiculous amount of pressure to find suspects, get confessions, and close the case quickly—preferably by the end of the day.

  Elena Sharp had left for Mandeville the day before her husband’s death, but that didn’t rule her out as a suspect. And, yes, she had a semblance of an alibi—the testimony of a security guard at her complex who stated that her car had been there the entire night. But she could have easily used a different vehicle, and it wasn’t that long a drive back to Beaulac.

  I’d called Ms. Sharp on Monday and asked her to come in for an interview. While she was quite cordial with me, she also made it clear that, if I wanted to talk to her, I would need to come to Mandeville, since she had no plans to remain in Beaulac once the funeral was over. I knew that I could put pressure on her to come in, yet there was always the chance that she would “lawyer up” if I did. I didn’t have enough probable cause to get a warrant, but I also didn’t have any problem making the hour-plus drive to Mandeville.

  So for now I merely watched and waited.

  “Lousy week, huh?”

  I looked over at the speaker. He seemed vaguely familiar—a fairly good-looking man in his forties or so, with a Hispanic cast to his features. He was dressed in an appropriately dark suit, but it didn’t look to be anywhere near the outrageous quality of those worn by some of the other men.

  “I beg your pardon?” I said.

  “A lot of deaths in the past week,” he explained. “Seems that way, at least.” He sighed and shook his head. “First the Roth couple and now Davis. I guess bad things really do happen in threes.”

  “Perhaps so,” I answered noncommittally. I was far more used to bad things happening in sweeping tsunamis of dozens, or at least it seemed that way to me. “Did you know Brian and Carol Roth?”

  “Yes, I did. I’m Adam Aquilo. I work with Brian’s father. I’m Judge Roth’s law clerk.” He extended his hand and I shook it politely.

  “I’m Kara Gillian,” I replied. “I think I’ve seen you at the courthouse before.”

  He nodded. “I recognized you. Of course, it helps that you’re dressed like a cop. Made it easy to place why you looked familiar.”

  I glanced down at my suit and rolled my eyes. “Yeah, I don’t quite fit in with the fashion parade.”

  He gave a low laugh. “Why do you think I staked out a spot against the wall too? My suits come from JCPenney.”

  “Oh, law clerks make enough to shop at the expensive stores?”

  He grinned. “Yeah, I’m rolling in it.”

  “So you were friends with the Sharps?”

  “I know Elena.… W
ell, I knew Davis as well, I suppose, through his restaurant, but I’m really here more as Judge Roth’s representative. The social and political scenes tend to run together, you know.”

  I gave a nod of understanding. I doubted that anyone expected Judge Roth to be in attendance—not when Brian’s funeral was set for the next day.

  I glanced toward the front of the church. Elena Sharp stood by her husband’s casket, graciously accepting the sympathy and polite embraces of mourners as they filed by. “She’s a very beautiful woman,” I remarked. “Davis was a lucky man.”

  Adam pursed his lips. “Just between you and me, she was the lucky one. She was trailer trash before he married her.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Really?” This was good. No need for interrogations when people were more than willing to gossip.

  “Really. That’s why everyone was so baffled when they found out she’d left him. And apparently she filed for divorce the same day.”

  That was news to me. “Well, she probably still gets a decent settlement, right?”

  He shrugged. “I suppose, but the money was only part of it. She loved being Mrs. Davis Sharp—society wife.” He gave a soft snort of what might have been derision. “She loved all the trappings—the parties, the events. Loved being seen and noticed. Like her car. Davis bought the two of them matching red Mercedes convertibles as a wedding present. She wanted hers to be bright yellow, so everyone would know it was her when she drove it. But they don’t come in yellow, and Davis—thank God—refused to let her have it painted.” He shook his head and straightened. “Well, I’d best go do my duty. It was nice talking to you.”